MOSCOW, December 16. /ITAR-TASS/. The deployment of Iskander missiles in Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad region does not run counter to international agreements, the Defence Ministry said on Monday, December 16.

“Missile troops and artillery units of the Western Military District are in fact armed with Iskander operational and tactical missile systems,” Defense Ministry Spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said on Monday, December 16.

He stressed that “concrete areas where Iskander squadrons are stationed in the Western Military District do not run counter to international agreements.”

The Iskander is a tactical ballistic missile system manufactured by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, Design Bureau of Machine Building, for the Russian ground forces. Iskander missiles were first test fired in 1996. The Russian army acquired the Iskander-M extended-range ballistic missile system in 2006.

The Iskander mobile missile system can engage ground targets such as command posts and communications nodes, troops in concentration areas, air and missile defense facilities and fixed and rotary-wing aircraft at airfields.